Project profile — Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD) – IYIP Internships 2015-2017

• Vietnam (5.00%)
• Uganda (11.00%)
• Thailand (11.00%)
• Dominican Republic (9.00%)
• India (5.00%)
• Jamaica (16.00%)
• Lesotho (11.00%)
• El Salvador (10.00%)
• Botswana (11.00%)
• South Africa (11.00%)

• Basic Health: Health education (12261) (50.00%)
• Population Policies/Programmes And Reproductive Health: STD control including HIV/AIDS (13040) (50.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)

This project is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) International Youth Internship Program (IYIP), funded by the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy (YES). The IYIP contributes to the YES by providing a large spectrum of Canadian graduates with valuable international development work experience abroad. ICAD’s 2-year IYIP initiative gives 40 Canadian youth internships in 10 countries. Internships focus on the community health sector and respond to the needs expressed by the local host organizations. Half of the internships take place in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, which remain at the epicenter of the global HIV epidemic. The remainder take place in regions of South East Asia where already high HIV prevalence rates continue to rise among key affected populations (people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, men who have sex with men, youth, women and girls).

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access by Canadian interns (young men and women) to Canadian labour market opportunities, including in the field of international development; and (2) increased engagement of Canadian interns (young men and women) as global citizens in supporting international development in Canada and abroad.

Results achieved as of March 2017 include: (1) 38 interns (28 female and 10 male) have gained skills pertaining to facilitation, program planning, social marketing, critical thinking and problem solving, cultural awareness, research/data collection/literature review, leadership, advocacy, proposal writing, interviewing and focus group facilitation, monitoring and evaluation, and project planning, management among others; (2) four interns placed with the Thai National AIDS Foundation drafted a business plan for Civil Society Resource Mobilization; participated in the monitoring and evaluation of an income generation project; and participated in the planning and implementation of sexual health workshops; (3) one intern working with the Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) prepared and edited governance manuals as well as facilitated three governance training workshops for BOCONGO members; (4) four interns placed with the Dududu Drop-in Centre have been involved in writing articles, creating a website and organizing youth engagement activities, setting up a computer centre, carrying out a computer literacy program for youth and designing and facilitating youth activities; (5) four interns placed with the CAP/AIDS Network in Uganda have developed project proposals for a micro-project and a capacity building project with a local partner, and conducted monitoring and evaluation of past projects with former beneficiaries; (6) four interns with Help Lesotho documented events through articles, photos, videos and reports, were involved in establishing Help Lesotho’s monitoring and evaluation tools, and facilitated sessions on various topics, including HIV transmission; and (7) five interns placed in the Dominican Republic have been teaching English to LGBT youth, developing a Business Plan outline, completing a proposal for social enterprise project funding, created a database for an upcoming clinical trial and conducted data analysis and participated in support and focus groups of transgender women and their families.

• Proactive disclosure